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Visits to Leading Hair Transplant ClinicsThis forum presents highlights from some of Pat's on site visits to leading hair transplant clinics.

Over the past few years that Dr. Steve Gabel has been recommended on the Hair Transplant Network, I have gotten to know him and his ultra refined work. I have come to regard him as being highly ethical and a likable straight shooter who works hard to provide his patients with excellent results at modest cost.

So I was not surprised to find while visiting his clinic that he and his staffs' truly ultra refined hair transplant procedure was outstanding from start to finish.

I was very impressed with the great attention to detail and care that Dr. Gabel and his staff showed at every step of the procedure.

Dr. Gabel took ample time to carefully remove the donor strip in sections in order to avoid follicle transection (severing follicles) and any damage to the underlying tissue, blood vessels and nerves. He adopted this careful donor strip removal from the expert surgeon Dr. Ray Konior of Chicago.

Dr. Gabel then performed a trichophytic closure that included using subcutaneous sutures (internal sutures in the tissue under the skin). These internal sutures pull the underlying tissues beneath the skin together so that the second external running suture simply closes the skin with minimal tension. Since tension is a leading factor in scarring, the low tension on the scalp's skin consistently produces pencil thin donor scars.

His donor removal and closure on average takes almost a full hour. Dr. Gabel's strong prior surgical background is evident in his skilled donor removal and closure. In my opinion, the combination of internal and external sutures is optimal for both minimizing scarring and potential patient discomfort.

On the day of my visit the patient had very good donor laxity and Dr. Gabel was able to remove a strip from ear to ear that was as wide as 1.75 centimeter at the back of the head and tapering to 1.3cm on the sides.

This donor tissue was carefully trimmed by Dr. Gabel's experienced staff under microscopes. The quality and refinement of the grafts appeared to be excellent. His staff is capable of trimming and placing over 4,000 follicular unit grafts during a single session.

Patient did not want to shave his recipient area so the hairs in this area where left long. Dr. Gabel chose to make the graft incisions in and around this existing hair sagitally (parallel to the underlying hair follicles) so as to minimize trauma and transection of these existing follicles.

Dr. Gable credits much of minimally invasive incision technique and careful graft orientation to Dr. Alan Feller, who mentored and encouraged him to perform a truly cutting edge procedure from day one of his career.

However in the areas without pre-existing hair he made lateral incisions (incisions perpendicular to the angle of the hairs normal growth) using tiny custom cut blades. In general Dr. Gabel prefers to make lateral (perpendicular) incisions. He is very meticulous about controlling the angle and direction of the incisions so that they replicate the natural direction and pattern of the hairs.

He used blades as small as 0.70 to create incisions for the single hair grafts and 0.90 for the three and four hair grafts.

Dr. Gabel is very hands on and typically places many of the grafts along with his staff.

In the surgery I observed the patient received 3,203 grafts in both his frontal hairline area, temporal points and crown for a total of 6,519 FUs (594 singles, 2274 doubles, 323 triples and 12 four hair grafts).

The surgery began at 7:30 am and was completed at 7:00 Pm. In my opinion, this surgery exemplified high quality ultra refined follicular unit hair transplantation.

I appreciate your support for my membership into the Coalition. And as I recently posted, it was a pleasure having Pat out to the office to demonstrate the work that we are doing. He spent the entire day with us allowing him to evaluate my practice, surgical technique, and our patient care from start to finish.

It is our primary goal at Northwest Surgical Hair Restoration to achieve outstanding results with great attention to all details of the patient's experience from the initial consultation, surgery, and follow up care.

Congrats on your membership into the Coalition. From what I have seen you've earned it. I do have a question for you. From looking at your pictures you seem like a great candidate for an HT. Why have you not recieved one yourself? I definitely don't think that people who's hair loss doesn't bother them should even worry about getting an HT and I suspect that is your case, but as a patient if I were visiting you for a consultation it would DEFINITELY be in my mind that if it's good enough for his patients why is it not good enough for him. Similar philosophy with a personal trainer. I would want them to be in excellent shape. Kind of a practice what you preach mentality. Again congrat and I look forward to your thoughts.

I viewed the pics before reading the write-up and was going to comment that the incisions looked as tiny as mine courtesy of dr. feller....then i read the write-up and it all makes sense...excellent looking work!

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I am the owner/operator of AHEAD INK a temporary/non-permanent Scalp Micropigmentation Company in the New York area. AHEAD INK is a Milena Lardi trained clinic and uses Beauty Medical equipment and products exclusively.

As a former patient of Dr. Gabel I am very pleased to read about Pat's visit and Dr. Gabel's induction into the Coalition of Independent Hair Restoration Surgeons. Everything Pat said is true (of course!). Not only is Dr. Gabel emminently capable of performing state-of-the-art hair transplantation, but he unwaveringly holds a patient's best interests at heart at all times. I'm happy to see Dr. Gabel receive such a wonderful review, he sure deserves it!

One thought on "flyby's" question -- I see his point, but the difference between the personal trainer thing and a HT physician having his (her?) own HT is that, at least as I see it, a HT is a purely aesthetic call, whereas being in shape is about health. It may well be that Dr. Gabel simply doesn't want to go that route himself...as many cosmetic surgeons haven't themselves had work done. That, and he may not in fact be a good candidate...

In many cases it might be a good idea if the physician is not the best of candidates to not have a HT. I would think that for many uneducated potential patients, the result that they see on the doc is the image that they will have of their own possible future results. Ofcourse most of us know that all situations are looked at seperately, but the average Joe might not.